by Tim Stevens on March 7, 2008 at 08:51 AM

In the battle for thin-panel television supremacy, the plasma display for many years has been the superior choice, relying on individual pockets of excitable gas to produce bright colors and rich blacks. But ever since the upstart LCD panel display came into the HDTV market, it's been gradually nipping at plasma's heels, and, after years of refinements, has finally started to offer similar ...
by Will Safer on March 6, 2008 at 02:55 PM

One of the biggest knocks against the iPhone has been its inability to handle enterprise email, which is how companies manage the email that is delivered to employees who, for example, use Blackberry's as their smartphones. That's changing now, as Apple today announced it will support the "push" e-mail systems necessary for corporate email to show up on their popular phone and music-playing ...
by Terrence O'Brien on March 6, 2008 at 02:48 PM

Today Apple officially unveiled its anticipated iPhone / iPod Touch SDK (software development kit) that will allow third parties to create applications that take full advantage of those devices' capabilities without all the hacking. A whole host of applications and games will be available via the "App Store" either on your iPod Touch or iPhone or in iTunes when it launches in June as part of the ...
by Terrence O'Brien on March 6, 2008 at 02:25 PM

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will award contracts to design and build an unmanned spy plane they've dreamed up that will stay aloft for for an amazing five years. The pseudo satellite will circle the globe for years at between 60,000 and 90,000 feet, gathering photos, communications, and generally watching everything you do. The craft will have to answer a number of ...
by Tim Stevens on March 6, 2008 at 11:22 AM

These days, the Internet browser wars are hotter than they've been since the late-90's (when Microsoft challenged Netscape and, eventually, killed the competition). Today, the battle is between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox. Mozilla is currently putting the wraps on its 3.0 version of Firefox, a major update with many stability and usability improvements, but Microsoft isn't ...
by Terrence O'Brien on March 6, 2008 at 09:12 AM

Rumor has it that Steven Spielberg is getting ready to prove that you really can have a social network for just about anything. His latest online project started out with Yahoo!, but has since found a home with an independent company after the mega-portal shelved the movie director/mogul's idea of a social network dedicated to those who have had or want to share a paranormal or extra ...
by Thomas Houston on March 5, 2008 at 06:12 PM

We've seen a lot of green gadgets and products coming to market lately, but we're pretty impressed with a new car that promises an high speeds and incredible mileage in a sporty, streamlined and eco-friendly design. Partially funded by the UK government, the green Lifecar project hopes to build excitement and support for zero-emissions technology. Built to be extremely efficient by a consortium ...
by Terrence O'Brien on March 5, 2008 at 04:17 PM

It seems like everyday computer users have a new reason to fear that their data is unsafe. And to be fair, it isn't. Unless you lock vital PC components up in separate bank quality vaults, encrypt all your data, and never go online, you're always in some danger, and at that point what use is a computer anyway? But every once in a while a hacker demonstrates a vulnerability in our computers that ...
by Terrence O'Brien on March 5, 2008 at 12:06 PM

What do you do when you're the U.S. government and you need heaps of computing power, quick and on the cheap? You snatch up 300 Sony PlayStation 3's of course. We've seen researchers use the gaming consoles before to crunch numbers and study gravity, and now the Air Force wants in on the Cell processor-powered action. What exactly the Air Force plans to use the 300 PlayStations for is unclear, ...
by Terrence O'Brien on February 29, 2008 at 09:03 AM

Google's one phone number for everything service, GrandCentral, is getting a new trial of sorts. Google is taking its 'Do no evil' mantra to the streets of San Francisco -- literally. A partnership between Google, the San Francisco city government, and Project CARE (Communications and Respect for Everybody) is offering a free phone number and voicemail box to every homeless person in the city for ...
by Tim Stevens on February 27, 2008 at 12:24 PM

About 20 years ago, the encyclopedia was undoubtedly the go-to place for information. It had plenty of drawbacks, though, among them size, cost, and lack of options. These days, there are dozens of encyclopedias, with the online and free Wikipedia getting much of the attention. However, despite each of them having a ridiculous number of entries, you wouldn't say that they cover everything there ...
by Terrence O'Brien on February 27, 2008 at 11:29 AM

Finally, a third party has confirmed what many have been saying for a while: Xbox 360 failure rates are much higher than the three to five percent Microsoft claims. Though not quite as high as the 30 percent some retailers have suggested, the 16 percent failure rate reported by SquareTrade is way beyond an acceptable rate. SquareTrade is an independent warranty provider, covering products ...
by Tim Stevens on February 27, 2008 at 09:27 AM

You can't beat free online e-mail. You want a different e-mail address for every day of the week? You got it. Need separate accounts for those sites you just know are going to spam you like there's no tomorrow? No problem. No problem, that is, until those sites go down, which is exactly what happened to Microsoft yesterday. Most users of the company's Windows Live suite of tools, which includes ...